Schumer: Dems, Obama joined at hip

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer acknowledged on Monday that the fates of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are entwined by necessity.

Schumer’s relationship with the White House has been strained in recent weeks. But the third-ranking Senate Democrat acknowledged that the president’s successes and failures have cast a shadow on the whole party.

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“We Democrats in the House and Senate know we’re joined at the hip with the president,” Schumer said on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” adding that when Obama “does well, we do well.”

But the president ought to listen to congressional Democrats “and vice versa,” he said. “We’re working as a team.”

The relationship between Schumer and Obama, arguably the Democratic Party’s two most influential message strategists, has frayed in recent months, particularly during the president’s negotiations with Republicans over an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the nation’s top earners. But both sides are working to patch up things for when a strengthened and determined GOP opposition comes to Capitol Hill in January.

Schumer openly criticized Obama’s tax-cut deal earlier this month, preferring his own plan to extend tax breaks for incomes under $1 million per year. But the White House predicted Schumer and other grumbling Democrats would soon realize the president negotiated the best possible deal given his weak political hand.